“Bless your soul, Leo,” she breathed.

 

The door of the house opened, and she was about to call down, but when she caught sight of her cellphone, she stopped. Instead, she picked that up and speed-dialed Leo’s number. Downstairs, she heard his phone go off.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Just checking that it was you down there. I’m stealing a bath from you right now.”

 

“Well, enjoy. You deserve it after the night you’ve had. I’m going to get some food together. Hungry?” he asked.

 

Suddenly she was starving. When was the last time she had eaten? This morning? Last night? “Yes, I definitely could use some food. Don’t you have leftover pot roast? Let’s eat that.”

 

“Yeah, good idea. I’ll throw that together.”

 

“I’ll get dressed.”

 

“No rush there, lover. Come as you are and all that.”

 

“Well, let’s see. I’m naked, and sudsy, and wet and steamy, and I have a Glock 9mm pistol in my hand with the safety off and a round in the chamber.”

 

He was quiet for a moment. “Why does that make me hard as a rock?”

 

“Because you always are. It’s fascinating. Come show me.”

 

“Nope. Got to get dinner ready.”

 

“I’ll rub my gun on my thigh for you,” she offered with a come-hither voice.

 

“On my way.”

 

After some posing and fun, she got out of the tub and gave him a long kiss, and then she pressed into his embrace. “I was so scared earlier. Seriously scared.”

 

“So was I. I saw that truck and I thought I lost you.”

 

“Well, your timing was wonderful.”

 

“Think so? I was thinking maybe an hour earlier would have been better.”

 

“Maybe, maybe they would have adjusted their plan, or just waited for you to leave,” she countered. “As it was, you came in right when I needed you, and you took care of the problems I couldn’t quite take care of myself. It was perfect. So, do you have many of these guns around your house?”

 

“Yes. Several, in fact. Twelve. And twenty knives,” he told her.

 

Her eyes sparkled. “You’re my kind of crazy. Um … could I perhaps borrow one until I can get my own?”

 

“Sure, but not that one. That tub is a good place to head for if there is a lot of firepower downstairs. That heavy son-of-a-bitch could take a lot of lead before the enamel would even get chipped. Put that one back and take the one from the far side of the bed. Under, about the middle.”

 

“Alright,” she agreed, and then skipped in and replaced the bathroom weapon. She retrieved the same make and model from the bed. “Why Glocks?”

 

“A friend had twelve of these for sale, and after checking them all out at the range, I bought all twelve. Figured it was a good investment. When was the last time you were on the range?”

 

She bit her lip searching her memory. “When I was nineteen, maybe?”

 

“There’s one in Lakeside. Call Preston; he’ll probably go with you the first time to let you get a feel for the place.”

 

“Preston! Why would I call him?”

 

“Well, from what I heard about you picking on the boys down at the club, Preston took quite a liking to you. He doesn’t offer to help, ever. Your fights are your fights, and his fights are his. Last night, he told the club that he not only condones what you did, he is willing to fight for it. It might be a good chance to find out more about him. He’s a very interesting guy.”

 

She put on one of his shirts and then followed him downstairs to stand around in the kitchen while he fixed up some dinner.

 

“What do you know about him?” she asked Leo.

 

“Well, first off, he’s gorgeous and turns even smart women like you in to molten puddles of butter.”

 

She laughed and couldn’t believe he had said that.

 

He glanced at her, his face completely serious. “What? I hear it from every woman who meets him. And poor Kim,” he told her.

 

“Stop,” she laughed. “Seriously. Four strong men who were certain they could take on you on ran from him tonight. They didn’t hurry out; they ran.”

 

“Yeah, well, Preston can have that effect on people who know him and piss him off.”

 

“So, give. What’s up?”

 

“Well, he’s an absolute master in hand-to-hand. His knife skills are good, but his pistol skills are phenomenal. At thirteen, I heard, he took State Champion in combat range.”

 

“Seriously?” Bev asked. “My dad competes in that! Hold on. What time is it? He could be up.”

 

After a moment, she called up her dad and asked if he had ever heard of a competition marksman named Preston Pope. “With an R, not a W first.”

 

“I know of him. Can’t have a youngster like that kicking your ass every year and not remember his name.”

 

“So this is real. He’s really better than you on a combat course.”

 

“Probably better on any course. And he’s not just good. I’m good. Even great. That boy … the bullets just went where he looked, without error. And, to top it off, he’s ambidextrous. There’s probably a demonstration film he did one year, of multiple targets around him, and him shooting in two separate directions, turning and cutting apart all of the targets. It’s probably on YouTube somewhere. Why the interest?”

 

“Well, I kind of got in a little tiff with some of the local guys, and he backed me up. And when he did, all of a sudden, in this room full of seriously tough men, no one wanted anything I had to offer.”

 

“I’m not sure if it is true, but a bio on him once said that he began martial arts training at three. That seems far-fetched to me. Five, I can see; four is pushing it. Three? The awareness for training just isn’t there yet.”

 

“When was the last time you had a three-year-old running around?”

 

“Last night.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Shawna. She’s nice. Single mom, works hard. You should probably get to know her.”

 

“Okay, well, thanks for the info on Preston.”

 

“No problem.”

 

She hung up, completely stunned. “My dad is in love with a woman named Shawna,” she gasped. “He said I should get to know her.”

 

“And?”

 

“He never says that. Since mom, women come, women go. He said this like he planned on marrying her! I need to find out who this bitch is!”

 

“I think you are at the edge of your “major happenings” meter. Time to eat and get you to bed.”

 

“Would it be alright if I slept here?”

 

“Yes. And I would enjoy that.”

 

After another amazing bout of Neanderthal sex, which always began so innocently soft and passionate, she noticed, they talked for several hours about simple things: movies, books, what they liked to do with yard space. Just regular couple stuff.

 

“Oh, before I forget, I rented Maison’s Hall for Yvette if she wants to have a wake for Crash on Saturday,” Leo said. “I have it rented from noon until midnight. And no, I won’t be attending, due to work I’ll have to finish. I also have three bartenders hired with lots of beer and wine.”

 

“Wow, that is so nice of you,” she told him.

 

“You don’t have to tell her it was from me. If you don’t think she’ll accept it, then tell her it is from you. I just want her to be able to have a real wake.”

 

“God, you are getting it real hard from all of this,” she sighed and kissed him.

 

“Yeah, well, I knew it was going to be difficult, but getting it in the back from my own club all the time — yeah, that’s hard.”

 

“Can you tell me what you are up to?”

 

He searched her eyes. “I talked with Danny, and he talked with you, and the three of us seem to feel that it is alright. Once you know things, though, you can’t unknow them. You can learn things in five seconds that will take years of therapy to get back out of your head.”

 

She laughed a little. “I understand. So, what are you doing, really?”

 

“I’m getting into a position with Nomar where I will know about all of the drug planes coming across the border. Then, using a fake tracker that I’ve already made, and taking the real one, I’m going to send one of the planes to a location where some men from the club will be waiting. They’ll take the coke, crash the plane, and get back out of there as fast as they can. Then, I pull a disappearing act, and it’s done.”

 

“All of this, for one plane?” she asked.

 

“Well, if it was easy, everyone would do it,” he chided her. “One plane is enough. It will be about five million out of his pocket. Plus, he’ll have to figure out how we did it, and then he’ll be questioning everything he does. It will hit him hard and worry him forever.”

 

Bev played that through. “And then Danny declares the Woody and Emma thing resolved, and that the club can move on and expel their grief. He didn’t get away with it: he paid.

 

“Won’t he be looking for you for the rest of your life?” she asked.

 

“Not if I’m dead,” Leo told her.

 

“You’re going to die?” she asked.

 

“Right in front of him actually, yes,” Leo agreed.

 

“Explain that to me,” she ordered softly.

 

He told her about how he was going to set up the false airstrip, and how the DEA would arrive, and the massive battle that would follow, and how he would look very, very dead.

 

“Hell, with that much going on, he might die — I mean really die,” she said once he was through.

 

“True. That would be against the directives, but true. Personally, I won’t feel bad at all if it happens.”

 

She sat up. “Okay, you’re dead and he’s wondering who sent you and how this was done and all of that — which is very cool by the way. But you can’t come back here, can you?”

 

He looked a little sad. “No, not for a long time, and maybe not ever.”

 

“But what about us?”

 

“Well, Danny is giving me a million to go somewhere and hide. You have said many times that you can work anywhere. So, I was kind of hoping you would want to come with me.”

 

This was not something she had expected to hear, so she needed time to think it through. Her first thought was for Yvette. Then another thought crossed her mind. “If I had said yes to waiting the six weeks so that you could get your life out of the shadows, I never would have seen you again, would I?”

 

“Not in the way you mean it, no. I would have disappeared a couple of weeks before that, and no one would know where I had gone. Also, we wouldn’t have been strong enough in our relationship where I would feel asking you to come with me would be wise.”

 

She let that sink in, and it felt really heavy on her.

 

“The first thing I think of is Yvette. Leaving her while she is still so vulnerable: That’s going to tear hard on me Leo, real hard.”

 

“Maybe you don’t have to come right away. I can get in touch with you, say, once a month, and see if you are ready.”

 

“Isn’t Skype encrypted? Couldn’t we use that?”

 

She watched him work that through his mind. “Yes, but not from your house or your office. Or any place that could be bugged. I’ve dropped the hint that you broke up with me because I wouldn’t let you call the cops after the attack — that the world I was in was too crazy for you. So, maybe they wouldn’t bother with you at all. But I wouldn’t want to bet your life on it.”

 

“Just kill him and be done with it,” she pouted, and then snuggled into his chest. “I know, I’m being a brat.”

 

“If I could take him and his five lieutenants, too, at the same time, I would. I wouldn’t even hesitate,” he told her.

 

“Even against Danny’s order?” she asked.

 

“Yes, even against,” he told her, and ran his fingers through her hair. “If I ever find out that Nomar did indeed tell those men to attack you, nothing will stop me from killing him. Nothing.”